Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Final Fantasy XIV's new concept art and trailer make it hard to resist

After it launched in 2010, Final Fantasy XIVquickly became a disappointment to both fans of the franchise and MMOs alike. At first blush, it looked absolutely amazing but it quickly fell apart due to shoddy programming and a glitchy combat system (what the hell is a fatigue system, anyway?) Its once-enthusiastic playerbase dwindled, and the game looked like a certain failure.

But then something amazing happened. Rather than write FFXIV off as a catastrophic loss, Square-Enix threw more money and man hours into actually making it playable good. A new director was brought on, and in short order the game began to look (really) good once again.

Now the game is scheduled for a renaissance of sorts as it launches for the PlayStation 3. The 2.0 update, entitled 'FFXIV: A Realm Reborn' will rewrite the lore of the game world, redraw the world map, and in - short - make FFXIV the game that it should have been at launch.

Based on the trailer for A Realm Rebornbelow, it looks like Square-Enix has finally turned FFXIV into the worthy successor of its beloved MMO forefather, Final Fantasy XI